Another Friday night of not having to worry about other people’s selfish, rude antics disrupting my life! No stress, no nothing. Just plain old happiness.

Yesterday, the strangest sound woke me up. We still don’t know what it was, but I have a theory. I awoke at 8:30, a half-hour before my alarm was set to go off, to a loud bang that rumbled through the house and vibrated me awake. It woke me right up the first time, then it happened again right after it woke me. When I saw it was too early for Tom to be in, I wondered if someone may have broken into the house, so I flung the bedroom door open, expecting to come face to face with someone other than Tom, but I saw no one. I ran and checked all the rooms and closets, but still, there was no one. Tom asked me if it could’ve been a water tank or something loud like that going next door, but no way. It was definitely coming from within the house itself. It sounded like something crashed to the floor which would rumble throughout the house. When Tom was shuffling heavy stuff around his office one day while I was in the bedroom, I could feel the vibration in there. The only thing I can think of was that it was the house settling. Especially amongst the floorboards. There was nothing else going on nearby that I could see.

I had the windows open today to air the place out, and it was so nice to be able to enjoy such a pleasant breeze without opening the window up to a world of chaotic noise. It was just as peaceful with the windows open. The only thing I hear every now and then is gunshots and engine-gunning. I love it here. For once I am truly home. God, please don’t take our home and our peace away from us! Keep the city in the city! Let us stay here forever and ever! Of course, it’s still scary to think - what are we gonna do when we get too old to drive and get around well since we’re so far out? What happens when I can’t clean the place very well? Will we end up all alone in some state-run nursing home? I try not to think of something that’s still too far away, but it’s hard not to sometimes.

We both still feel rather shocked and annoyed that Dennis wanted so much money and so fast, but in the end, it actually worked out for the better, and old Dennis may have done us a favor after all. We don’t have to pay $500 of the $1,000 back but had he agreed for us to give him a few hundred dollars a month, we would be able to pay that on our own and would’ve ended up paying the whole $1,000 ourselves. But with him wanting $500 this month and the rest next month, we only end up paying him $500. Perhaps this is a selfish way to look at it, but we got this from a woman who not only once used us for a good four or five thousand dollars after Dad died (I believe Ma used Dad’s death as an excuse to use Tom), but who can’t have too many more years to live if even that. Because of this, it’s easy to feel OK about the money she gave us. Grateful, but not guilty.

When Tom was testing out the new net thing on my computer and showing me how to get into it, he went to John Saul’s site and it turns out he just released a book and is going to be releasing another one in June. The site had the prologue and the first chapter, and man, I’ll tell you, he is not the writer he used to be. The whole fucking prologue was nothing but childbirth. I’m so sick of that subject! It’s no wonder the desire to have my own child wore off. Why is this world so obsessed with the subject? The same old same old gets old. The part of the book that wasn’t childbirth was utterly boring. I don’t expect his June book will be any better.

Tom got a sticker-dissolving cleaner that works great. I got the ugly stickers off of the tub, toilets, and windows. He also got a filter for the well. Thank God! We sure do need that. I haven’t taken a bath lately cuz of all the sand that comes out. I’m hoping we can replace the bathroom sink faucets real soon too, cuz they’re cheap pieces of shit. This doesn’t have an aerator you can take off like the kitchen sink, tubs and showers do, so it’s all clogged up with sand and all you get is a little trickle of water. There’s no pressure at all. We need to get a second pressure tank, too. We’re gonna replace the bathroom faucets which I hate, with the single lever kind we got in Phoenix.

He got a paper shredder for things with credit card numbers and it’s so cool. The animals love it. The rats don’t really care for shredded paper, but the mice love to burrow in it and the pig loves to chew on it. Right now, the rat’s chew toy of choice is an old hair bubble of mine I cut off its elastic.

Yesterday Lisa turned 17. I hope she’s doing OK. God, do I ever hope so! I’m just afraid that she too, has a long wait for happiness. Better later than never, I guess.

Later...

I just called Tammy’s, blocking our number out first, in the hopes that Lisa would answer, but Tammy did so I hung right up. I miss Lisa so much! I wish to hell we never became as close as we did. It’d make things a whole lot easier. Perhaps I shouldn’t be bothering, anyway. Trying to get to Lisa could very well be asking to have an old can of worms opened. Not that I couldn’t shut that can, but I just don’t want to deal with these people she’s connected to. I don’t want to hear about them, I don’t want to know about them. I’m done with them. I’ve been done with them and their bullshit. All I’ll ever do from here on out is drop them a quick line every year or so (without our address and number), but I doubt if I’ll ever do that.